


lsd (love, sex, dreams)

by sadie18



Category: Black Mirror
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Drugs, Groundhog Day, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, References to Drugs, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 18:03:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17309303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadie18/pseuds/sadie18
Summary: colin was the constant in the infinite change





	lsd (love, sex, dreams)

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on tumblr and talk to me pls thanks   
> @oliivverwood

Stefan was rather clever.

It only took twenty two days of the loop to realise the constant.

Some days, Stefan woke up and his mother was alive and happily in love with his father. On others, one of them was dead. There were days where his father was a gay divorcee, others where his mother was a barely getting by stripper. They got wild, some days. 

And some days were reminiscent of the first.

That's how he'd know the loop was over.

When it went back to just his father, a shitty computer and Frosties for breakfast. 

Every single day, he woke up to whatever was thrown at him, left the house, and took the bus to Tuckersoft and met  _him._ He'd bring him to his house, and he'd see the bigger picture.

 _He_ was a constant. _He_ was Stefan's ticket out. 

Colin Ritman was supposed to get him out of this loop.

After seeing Colin Ritman seventy three days in a row, Stefan could say he knew him like the code in his computer. He had platinum hair, glasses, all the basics. He had a girlfriend he wasn't in love with and a child that wasn't his. He took LSD whenever the fuck he felt like it, and he was devastatingly, wickedly  _sharp._

Stefan had to change the sequence every day. Yes, he'd been so  _fucking_ close, some days. He'd be on his balcony, looking down, a different set of choices throughout the day. He'd jumped, he'd made Colin jump, he'd even thrown  _Pearl_ off into the night sky, but he'd always wake up in his bed with only the memory of the day before. 

It had something to do with Colin, and it happened on the balcony. It was the final stage, the boss level.

The game over. 

* * *

 

He woke up. 

Day seventy three became day seventy four. 

His mother wasn't alive today. His father wasn't home either. There were only two cereal boxes on the table. 

Sugar Puffs, Frosties. 

Stefan had tried not choosing either, just rushing out the door and eating something outside. He'd tried finding something else in the fridge. 

Today, he mixed the cereals. Nothing had to be black and white unless you made it.

_Nothing had to be black and white._

Stefan took the bus to get off a stop before Tuckersoft. He'd walk the rest of the way. He'd take the lift up two floors above where he was supposed to go, and then he'd walk down. 

And then he'd meet Colin Ritman for the seventy fourth time. 

" _Colin, yeah?"_

Some days, Stefan swore Colin had remembered. 

Some days, Colin would frown as they shook hands, and murmur, _"we've met."_

Stefan was too scared to say yes. 

Today would be different.

"We've met." Colin whispered, bringing Stefan closer. His breath tickled Stefan's ear.

_"Yes."_

* * *

 

"So you're in, like, in a time loop of different realities? Same day, different world sort of thing?"

They were in his sitting room. Instead of sitting across the table, Colin was sat on top of it.

"Yeah." Stefan hesitated. "Yeah, some days, you remember meeting the day before. If I don't get the code right today, you won't remember this tomorrow."

Colin brought his joint to his lips, inhaling deeply, before looking up and blowing towards the ceiling. The muscles in his neck strained.

Stefan felt his hands get clammy.

"Want a hit?" 

Stefan knew saying no wouldn't be in his favour for the code. The burning in his throat still felt new every time. 

Colin took the joint back. "And I'm the constant? You meet me and I take you back here every day?"

Stefan nodded. Colin clapped his hands and got up.

"Well, I think we need to see something from the,  _ah_ , bigger picture." He murmured. He brought out two squares. They were familiar, small, white with a insignia on them both. 

Stefan would end up ingesting it  _somehow_. Better to take it instead of refusing, or it'd end up in his tea.

The effects didn't take long. Soon enough Stefan was focused on a painting. The flowers were swirling in an intricate pattern that he didn't understand but found rather pretty. Colin was raving about Pac Man. 

Again.

"-People think it's a happy game. It's  _not,_ and we live in it." Colin continued. His glasses were slipping down his nose. Stefan's fingers itched to adjust them.

"I've given you the knowledge." Colin took them off and grabbed Stefan by the face. " _I've set you free._ "

No matter how many times Stefan had heard those lines, he'd never be free. 

He watched Colin's eyes droop out of its' sockets, and it unsettled him just like it had every other time. 

It was just the drugs.  _Just the drugs._ It was him seeing the bigger picture.

"Let me show you." Colin whispered.

It kind of hurt, that this happened every day, even on days where Colin sometimes remembered. They'd still go to the balcony, they'd still jump off, Colin, Stefan, or sometimes the both of them. Stefan would feel like he'd progressed only to wake up to meet him again. 

_Nothing had to be black and white._

The weather was chilly, and the breeze sent a shiver down his spine. Stefan hugged himself together. 

"I'll prove it." Colin murmured. "One of us is going over."

"You'd die." Stefan blurted. It was impulse, the panic that rose in him because  _it couldn't end like this again._ He'd said it every day.

"How many times have you watched Pac-Man die? Doesn't bother him. He just tries again. One of us is jumping- so who's it going to be?"

Stefan had panicked on the first day and made Colin jump. He'd blacked out when he went home, thinking  _"oh my God, I've fucking killed Colin Ritman."_

In some reality, he  _had_ killed Colin Ritman. But it wasn't the one he woke up in. He woke up in a different timeline, a different world every day, unless he could fix the code. He'd  _know_ when it was right.

"Come on," Colin urged. "Who's it going to be? Completely up to you. It's your choice."

_Nothing had to be black and white._

"Completely up to me?" Stefan giggled, playing Colin's game. "Alright."

"Neither of us jump." 

Colin's eyes bugged out. "That's not a choice."

"It's  _my_ choice." Stefan said. "I will not jump. You will not jump. It doesn't  _work_. No matter how many realities are out there, no matter how many worlds around us exist, it's not  _this_ one. This one is yours. The one you might wake up in isn't. And you'll miss it, and you'll regret it."

Stefan grabbed Colin's arm. "Do you understand? If you jump, you're dead to  _this_ world. And you might not care, but people will?"

"Yeah?" Colin raised his voice. "Who? Who gives enough of a shit?"

" _Me_!"

Stefan supposed it was the drugs, maybe, or the fear that he'd have to wake up and suffer the system another day, but in any normal circumstance, he would  _never_ reveal that. 

He supposed it was the drugs and the fear that made him continue, as well.

"I've met you seventy four times. I've come to your house to get high just to watch someone in this  _bloody_ house jump off the balcony, only to wake up the next morning and meet them again! You are the  _only_ constant in every  _single_ reality I've woken up in. I have tried _every_ variable except for this one."

"So neither of us jump."

Stefan had come increasingly close to Colin during his rant, and their faces were inches from each other's. 

He'd never been so upset in his  _life_.

After about a minute of staring each other down angrily, Colin  _laughed._

He had the nerve to  _laugh._

"Let's have a test." Colin whispered, bringing his mouth closer to Stefan's ear. "I'm going to come home with you tonight. If I'm gone in the morning, this didn't work. If I wake up in your bed, it did."

Stefan's ribcage felt kind of tight for his lungs. "W-what about Kitty? And Pearl?"

Colin laughed again. "We don't love each other. After seventy four days, I know you've already picked that up."

"Okay."

* * *

 

As soon as his alarm went off, Stefan shot up and felt around the bed. 

He was in bed alone.

He felt the tears of frustration stinging in his eyes, and he was about to wreck the  _fuck_ out of his room-

"Morning." 

Stefan looked over to his messy desk and  _Colin Ritman_ was sat there watching him, hair ruffled, glasses crooked and shirtless. 

"It worked." He grinned. 

Stefan couldn't help but laugh.

_Nothing had to be black and white._


End file.
